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Tutorial Details:
Learn how to use voice, structure, and platform to draw readers into your story!
The local bookstore is full of memoirs on nearly every subject these days. How can you give your memoir that extra edge that makes agents want to represent it, editors want to buy it—and most importantly—get audiences clamoring to read it? Writing a memoir isn’t as simple as telling your personal story. It’s about carefully crafting a selected piece of your history using a well-honed voice, an appropriate structure, and then using your platform to gather an audience for it.
This tutorial will help ensure you’re using voice and structure to the best of your ability, and will discuss how to use platform to help make you a more valuable writer.
Instructor Paula Balzer is a literary agent and the author of Writing & Selling Your Memoir (July 2011). Her clients include New York Times best-selling author Alexandra Robbins (Pledged, Quarterlife Crisis, Secrets of the Tomb), Oscar-Award winning writer of Juno Diablo Cody (Candy Girl), American Idol judge Randy Jackson (What’s Up Dawg?), and Bobby Henderson (Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster).
In this 77-minute tutorial video, you’ll learn:
- The difference between “voice” and “writing properly”
- Common voice stumbling blocks
- What it means to “break the rules correctly” while writing memoir
- How to find a structure that’s the best fit for your book
- The “narrative thread” and why you need one
- Platform: what agents and editors are really looking for
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